Last week, an unknown number of Blackhawk helicopters strafed the Miami skyline while numerous residents on balconies overlooking the city witnessed the helicopters actually firing their machine guns with blanks in the vicinity of the Miami Herald Building. One amateur video shot by Atlanta resident Josh Epperson captured the sound of blank rounds being fired.

The U.S. Army along with other agencies took over the old Carnegie Vanguard High School near Scott and Airport. There were armed men in fatigues, plenty of weapons and what many thought were real live rounds

“I felt like I was in a warzone.” Jerrals said. “It was nonstop. I was terrified.”

A MEMBER of the family that controls the German shoe company Birkenstock has sold a triplex penthouse in the South Beach section of Miami Beach for $25 million, a record price for a Miami-area apartment, eclipsing the previous record of $21.5 million reached five months before.

The buyer of the 7,400-square-foot penthouse in the Continuum towers was an Italian who controls an investment company, said Pietro Belmonte, a broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman who has sold residences in the building. The seller was Alex Birkenstock, who withdrew from day-to-day operations of his family’s shoe company in 2008, according to one person familiar with the matter. He bought the apartment for $9.9 million in 2009.

The sale closed last Friday.

The penthouse, which is on the 40th to 42nd floors, has five bedrooms, seven and a half bathrooms and 6,000 square feet of outdoor space across six terraces, and includes a private pool and an internal elevator. The floor-to-ceiling windows reach as high as 26 feet in the living room, said Khashy Eyn, the chief executive of Platinum Properties of Manhattan and the broker who represented Mr. Birkenstock.

“It is a glass box in the sky,” Mr. Eyn said.

It has rented for $20,000/day, or approximately 200 pairs of Birkenstocks at retail.

It was not listed on the market.

Neither is casa de Fausta, but if you want it for $25 million, make me an offer!

Was reading the article linked by Babalu on the $30,400 per couple (how much for going stag, I wonder?) cocktail party the Estefans threw for Obama – which preceeded the fundraiser where Obama declared himself amused by yesterday’s Tea Party rallies,

He says he’s been a little amused over the past couple of days when people at the rallies complained about taxes.

Mas, oui,

What does $30,400 get you at an Obama coctail party?

Sushi.

I’m not kidding you. Rather than serve Cuban cuisine, the Estefans had sushi:

One of the two paparazzi who took photographs of the Rev. Alberto Cutié frolicking on a beach with a woman has begged for the public’s forgiveness on Univisión’s Cristina talk show.

While speaking Monday to the show’s host, Cristina Saralegui, photographer Lorenzo Gonzalez said he was only doing his job last month when he snapped a few shots of the Roman Catholic priest with his lover.

”Truly, I want you to understand that we’re only news providers,” he said.

Alberto was told about the photos the day before the pictures were published.

The two paparazzi, Lorenzo Gonzalez and Luis Castillo, along with TVNoticias editor Juan Garcia Alejandro, were on Cristina Saralegui’s TV show. Considering that Saralegui is a personal friend of Padre Alberto, it was rather brave of the photographers and the editor to have agreed to the interview. Interestingly, Alberto’s girlfriend was photographed meeting with one of the paparazzi recently.

There are new photos of Alberto and his girlfriend coming up. I’ll post them once they’re available.

The debate on Padre Alberto rages on. So far over 20,000 visitors have come to this blog, and my posts on Padre Alberto have gathered over 70 comments, more than on any other person I’ve ever blogged about.

Imagine being a healthy, single 39-year-old working in South Beach — and you’re sworn to celibacy? It’s like the Vatican version of waterboarding.

Give the poor padre a break. Jesus himself would get whiplash on Ocean Drive, where impure thoughts come in waves, often on Rollerblades.

The Miami Herald blog says There’s still room at the mike for Father Alberto Cutie; that much is clear. Considering the amount of attention the story is still getting, you can be assured that Alberto’s going to be continuing his very successful broadcast and media career in the future.

And he looks maahveloss.

By the way,
The comments I’ve been getting on Alberto’s sexuality, and the speculation as to whether he’s already fathered children are rumors. The facts are that Alberto:
a. violated his vow of celibacy and
b. was photographed making out with a woman at the beach.

In an interview taped Friday and aired Tuesday night on Univisión’s Aqui y Ahora, Cutié — whose fate with the Catholic church remained up in the air Wednesday — intimated it might have been Cuban spies who followed him and taped him getting frisky with his lover on a beach in Miami.

”I knew that during some time I was being followed,” Cutié said. ‘I think that being Cuban-American, we have that paranoia that perhaps it could be someone from another government, from another place. … I had experiences at Radio Paz of seeing strange cars when I would leave work late or arrive early. I would see things and I would say, `I wonder who would be following me?’ ”

Incredible as it sounds, Padre Alberto was still on the front page of the Miami Herald this morning, so it’s time to poke some fun at the story. Jaime Bayly has the clips from a Peruvian TV show parodying Alberto, featuring Peruvian comedian Carlos Alvarez.